My Flash Fictions

She tried to strangle me with her hugs, her kisses. With every waking moment she thought to wrap me in her presence, to inhale nothing but the scent of her too-sweet perfume. She tried to entangle and ensnare me with the cold metal of a ring.

 So I strangled her with a flowering cypress vine.

-=-

The head had ceased dripping blood some time ago, though some congealed mess still leaked out and splattered at the base of the statue. The concrete horseman, rearing with sword lifted in defiance to all that was unjust. The sword was now a spear, thrusting up through useless gray matter and causing milky eyes to bulge out, almost as though they were surprised. The mouth sagged open, something large and flaccid having been stuffed into it. The chin was as filthy as a child’s bib on spaghetti night.

At the base of the statue, two hands lay, made into fists. The knuckles were scrapped and cut open; they were the hands of a fighter, or a hitter at the very least. Tattooed across the fingers of each hand was the word LOVE, in faded blue lettering. Perhaps it had been meant to mean that he loved twice as much. The hands met in a V shape, the ragged wrists pressed together and glued to the concrete by way of viscous gore.

The macabre ensemble stared toward the courthouse, filmy eyes filled with what Katy assumed was regret.

She gathered with the rest of the growing crowd, staring up at the man, or what was left of him. No longer the nights of hot, furiously scrubbing showers; no more the pitiable looks or the covering makeup. This, it was a much better monument than a cold stone in a manicured cemetery, for this was how he would forever be remembered.

-=-

“Tell me, what do you see now?”

 “I see Jessica,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper.

He lays down the card to reveal the one behind it. “And now?”

 “Jessica.”

 He sighs and says, “That’s forty-eight cards, Megan. Why do you think you see Jessica in them all?”

 “Jessica is in everything,” the young woman says, her eyes transfixed by the Rorscach card. She wanted to reach out, to touch the portrait of the girl, but the straps made that impossible.

 “There is no Jessica, Megan.”

 Blood, a shovel, the sweet, cold face of her father’s secret.

-=-

 Whispers of air brushed past her cheek, stirring strands of loose hair that fell from the cap she wore. She crouched behind the dumpster, watching, waiting. Around her the debris stirred, wrappers and discarded newspapers ruffling and fidgeting. One such paper began to drift by, a crossword puzzle visible through the grime and stains. She speared it with the tip of her dagger. The only word spelled out in the blocks was ‘Thunder’. Her lips curved in a small smile and she released the paper, watching as the light draft carried it further into the inky blackness of the alley.

 Glancing up, she saw that the moon had moved a quarter of an inch since she’d arrived. She marked its current location in her mind, for it was the guiding hand of her internal clock, and to lose track of its progress would be to lose her only window home.

 Footsteps echoed in the distance. She tensed, listening for the sign, the signal that fate had set in place to make her aware, certain. There it was, thunder in the distance. The sound of boots on pavement grew closer. She sank into a tighter crouch, knuckles white with the pressure she exuded on the hilt of her curved knife. Runes dug into the flesh of her palm, reassuring her of their presence.

 The steps passed and she saw him. He was clad as expected, dark clothing, long duster swirling around his calves. Without a sound she sprang forward, soft leather boots failing to stir the trash at her feet. She took two steps and then launched herself into the air, legs tucked under her body. She crashed into his back. Cloth ripped as she struck, the knife burying itself into… Nothing.

There was only the jacket, no body. As she fell to the ground, sliding on her knees atop the duster, she felt the cold barrel of a gun on the back of her neck.

 “Will they not give up?” Victor asked, his voice a whisper.

 “Not until the God within you is released,” she said, listening for the thunder.

-=-

The smells of salty air and rotten fish assault me, just as they do every morning in this shit-hole of a city. Seagulls wheel above and beside me, belting out their mind-numbing screeches. If only I could take those damn birds with me, maybe I would be coined a hero instead.

I reach into the pocket of my sweat pants pulling out the wad of bills and eviction notice with the sheriff’s seal and signature on it.  I stuff them into the front of my shirt, feel them rub against the coarse, dirty hair on my chest. I thought about showering this morning, but really couldn’t be bothered. Let them deal with it, let them clean up MY mess for once.

“Come on Jim,” someone calls from below. It sounds like the foreman; I’m surprised he even knows my name. Funny how being two-hundred feet in the air can promote you from the ‘guy picking up shit’ to ‘Jim.’ “We can work this out!”

I show him my middle finger, nail missing and bloody. God can explain to him. I pick up my rifle and watch him start to run; they all start to run. 

Chattering rifle, screaming birds, me.

-=-

He awoke to burning pain in his shoulders, in his chest. He tried to move his arms and realized they were tied behind his back.

“What the…” He looked down. Angry slashes crisscrossed his bare chest, his abdomen painted with dried blood and… he smelled honey.

Dark specs crawled before his vision and he assumed he was about to pass out, but then the first ant bit into him, then another. He felt them crawling into his cuts, into his flesh and burrowing into his opened body.

The last thing he remembered was pointing, laughing, and calling her ‘Ugly Debbie.’

-=-

Strands of her shredded blouse clung to his dirty, cracked fingernails. Her eyes fastened on the navy blue threads, dangling there like small vines grown from fungus. As he talked they swayed, back and forth, back and forth. His words were a distant buzz, an annoying mosquito with a larger-than-average thirst for blood.

“I love the color red,” he said. He had demonstrated this love all across her chest, shoulders, and neck. She still felt one of his filthy nails embedded in her flesh, just above her right breast, where it had broken off. “It’s my favorite.”

Hers too, once.